July 21, 2024 • 36 mins
A new HBO Original documentary takes you inside the minds of misfits who unleashed a commercial assault on low-earth orbit. Bloomberg journalist Ashlee Vance tells me how he made it happen.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The information provided in this program is of a general
nature and is not intended to be personalized financial advice.
We encourage you to seek appropriate advice from a qualified
professional to suit your individual circumstances. And your documentary takes
you inside the minds of misfits who unleashed a commercial
assault on Low Earth orbit. Ashley Vance explains why he
spent years documenting the space race.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
All right, I haven't really told this story yet, but.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
Five four three two one you've.
Speaker 4 (00:50):
Heard about the billionaire space Race. Shit, this isn't that movie.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
This HBO original documentary Wild Wild Space follows these slightly
cowboy personalities behind the punishing and once private pursuit to
defy the laws of physics. It focuses on a few characters,
Astra's Chris Kemp, Planet Labs Will Marshall, and Rocket Labs
Peter Beck.
Speaker 5 (01:17):
There's f bombs.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Let's start a company.
Speaker 5 (01:20):
Best competition.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
I'm going to conclusive billions of dollars at stake, and
more importantly, the shape of our society.
Speaker 4 (01:29):
And whoever controls space may very well control the future
of humanity.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
It's impressive innovation, but enough to unseat even the most
optimistic among us. HBO gave me express written consent to
use this trailer. The whole documentary was inspired by Ashley Varance,
who spent years following Rocket Lab and Astra behind the scenes.
I have a chat to him just after the premiere.
(01:55):
This is a bit different to my typical CEO interviews.
It's just two business jo list on other ends of
the Earth, bonding of their coverage of space companies.
Speaker 5 (02:05):
It's good to chat.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
It's my pleasure. Thank you for having me on.
Speaker 5 (02:09):
And thank you again for letting me watch in early screening.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
It was It was so fun to watch early and
I loved it as much as I thought I would.
It was.
Speaker 5 (02:17):
It was really a good job.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Oh thank you. Yeah, well, it was lots of effort.
I'm glad to hear that.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
When I was kind of my first question, right, I mean,
talk about the effort you spent.
Speaker 5 (02:28):
Was it six years writing the book and then filming this.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Yeah, I was trying to think. I mean the first
time I ever. Somebody reminded me last night we had
this premiere in New York City. You know, I make
this television show called Hello World for Bloomberg, and it
was actually the very first season of shooting the show.
I went to see Peter back in Rocket Lab in
Auckland in twenty fifteen, and so I had no idea
(02:51):
I was going to do a book or a documentary
at that point. But we do have so some of
the I mean, we have some archival footage, but otherwise,
like the early footage that you know I kind of
shot with the camera would have been twenty fifteen. And
then you know, it was around twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen
when I really could feel the momentum picking up and
(03:12):
definitely knew there was a book there and started realizing,
you know, I'd done this biography on Elon Musk and
all these people sort of wanted to be the next
Space Act, the next Elon. So I had really good access.
Everybody wanted me to come by, and I realized I
had such good access that I should start trying to
see if I could sneak cameras in there, because it
(03:32):
was it's like really rare to catch some of these
companies at such an early stage and to be invited,
you know, into the Michigan control and to watch the
launches and all that stuff. And so yeah, so anyway,
it's at least six or seven years incredible.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
Well I was going to ask that anyway, I mean,
why not do this on Elon Musk. Why focus on
the smaller satellite low Earth orbit players when there are
you know, massive multibility it's playing in this game like
Elon and formally Bezos two.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Yeah, for a whole bunch of reasons. Everyone. I done
the biography on Elon and.
Speaker 5 (04:04):
We didn't go down so well.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Yeah, we hadn't always had this relationship, so it wasn't
really it wasn't really I had some PTSD and I
really want to spend more time on him. And then
also there's been kind of a few SpaceX. There's quite
a few SpaceX films on Netflix and elsewhere, and and
then you know, it really was It's just what I
(04:28):
got interested in. I mean, I just could feel all
this activity that same story. Like, you know, I'd covered
space quite a bit for a while, and I always
had rocket people reaching out to me, We've built a rocket,
and then you go see it and it's nothing. And
then I started hearing rumors about this guy in New
Zealand and no offense. I was just skeptical. I mean,
it's it's usually something that comes out of like the
(04:51):
United States or Russia, someone with a history of doing
the stuff. And so the first time I went there,
I had very low expectations, and I was shocked. You know,
there was three rocket bodies on the on the shop floor,
and he clearly knew what he was doing, and everyone
was speaking so highly of them, and so I just
kind of caught the cut the bug, and I thought
it was a really fascinating story. I thought everybody hears
(05:13):
about the billionaires all the time. There was just this
raw sort of underbelly, underdog energy to the people that
I was I was covering, and so I enjoyed all
of that. And then you know, in fairness, like I mean,
this is hindsight speaking, but like I worked out pretty
well as far as like Peter at Rocket Lab is concidered.
(05:33):
I mean, people always talk about Branson and Besis. I
mean Elon, Yes, like SpaceX is dominant, but but Peter's
like the only other game in town. So if you're
if you're doing like a space story of Branson or Bezos,
I think you're probably in bad shape.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Nohing's taken that you were under You had kind of
had underwhelming thoughts on our country initially, I think most people.
Do you even see in the documentary about New Zealand
there's like nothing there and it out by.
Speaker 5 (06:04):
The time.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
That was specifically about the cargo.
Speaker 5 (06:09):
Oh yeah, it's nothing.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Yeah, I if that came off of the entire country,
I feel bad. I was trying to I was trying
to kind of like put Peter's place in the country.
When was the first time I came to New Zealand.
You know, my mom's Australian and I've gone to Australia
every year of my life for many, many, many years.
We had a huge family there, but I never went
(06:31):
to New Zealand all those times. I would always be
in Sydney just seeing family. And so I really went
to New Zealand for the first time for this project. Yeah,
twenty fifteen would have been my first visit. And then
over the course of doing the book in the film,
I think I went it's got to be like seven times.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
I think, Wow, over the course of the filming and
doing the research for the book. That's a long way
to come that many times, youde I did.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
I mean one of my favorite trips, you know, A
lot of times I would go see Rocket Lab at
their headquarters and things like that, and then I'm a
tech journalist, I would go see I think I've written
like quite a lot of stories about New Zealand tech
companies for somebody who's not from the country. But one
when I really was like getting ready to do the book,
I we spent this amazing month with my family. I
(07:20):
tried to like retrace Peter's you know, childhood more or
lesson so I wanted to see everywhere he'd grown up,
where he'd gone to school. So we went to the
South Island and started at christ Church and just did
this big road trip already around the country and then
went in a little bit to Queenstown and then back
out and all the way around. And so I went
to dun Eden and in Viicargo, all these spots that
(07:42):
have been part of Peter's life, and then and then
obviously Auckland as well, and so yeah, I was really
memorable trip. I mean that was my family was ready
to move there, and we probably we would have been
a good choice to do that, I think so. But
it was one of my favorite things of doing this
project was getting to know the country. I love it.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
I love that well, you are welcome back anytime, and
on behalf of all of us, thank you for covering
our tech companies.
Speaker 5 (08:08):
We kind of push above our weight on that front.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
So yeah, really do. And then you know, just what
I've seen in the last few years is crazy. I mean,
I guess you know, in large part thanks to Rocket
Labs success, I'm quite convinced after the United States, New
Zealand has more aerospace startups than any other country, which is, like,
it is pretty remarkable feat you heard it.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
Here first, but that is I mean, I think what
is so incredible about this whole documentary. I mean and
your book obviously as well, but the excess that you
got and these companies, I mean, we're both filmed inside them.
There's a lot of commercial sensitivity on those factory floors, right,
like we feel ending there's more you're told that you're
(08:52):
not allowed to film than you are filmed than you
are allowed to film.
Speaker 5 (08:56):
So how did you while you were filming this entire documentary?
Speaker 1 (08:59):
How did you navigate that to ensure you got enough
behind the scenes footage?
Speaker 2 (09:03):
It was really tricky. And if I go on too large,
just tell me to shut up. But I mean you're
totally right. I mean, I mean some of this is
like this very serious legal stuff. There's this you know,
United States law it TAR, which is a restriction around
defense related technologies, and they take it very seriously. Even
if you accidentally leak some image, it's deemed important by
(09:26):
the government. I mean, like the person who took the
images going to jails and you're, you know, possibly are
getting some horrible fine, and so is the company. And
so Rocket Lab fell under those same restrictions. I was
lucky companies like rocket you know, some of the companies
in the film are just at different stages of their journey,
and so Rocket Lab was a little bit trickier. You
(09:48):
have to be quite careful about where you put the camera. Astra,
as people will see in the film, was both like
at a younger stage and also a bit more freewheeling
about some of these things than the other companies, and
so they let me film everything. I mean, I was
in the Michigan control when the rocket's blown up and
they're trying to tell everyone that it was okay, talking
(10:09):
to their investors and things like that, and so but
that's really what I knew I had something special. Is
because this is every other space story you usually see
unless it's a movie where they can dramatize things. It's
a very positive story about everything going right and our
(10:32):
best and brightest doing these amazing, courageous things, which is true.
But you know, there's a lot of heartache and drama
and things going wrong on the way to that point,
which you never get to see because obviously nobody wants
to show their worst moment, and so that was kind
of my quest, was to show what life was really
like at the end. We did have to have a
(10:52):
lawyer look over It's like almost like nothing to do
with the story. It's just did you show this rocket
from this angle where some overseas adversary could blow it
up and figure out how they build their motor And
so you just have a lawyer go over that stuff.
And I made I did make that agreement with the companies.
Obviously nothing to do with content or anything like that.
(11:13):
But let's all not go to jail because of this picture.
So that's how we solved it.
Speaker 5 (11:18):
That would kind of be a bad end, right.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
I think One of my favorite moments, and a couple
of them, were following Chris Kemp around and just how
forthcoming he was to you, even kilt playing up for
the cameras right, like eating the lead paint. And one
of my favorite, which was kind of a very quick
moment with him on the phone too, I'm assuming his
partner and he said something like, baby, this is going
(11:40):
to make our lives so much easier. It was like
course personal moments, and I found that was quite a
contrast to the light that you saw either Will Marshall
or Peter Beckett. You know, they were very much at
work and wanted to be scientists and engineers. Do you
feel like through the content you were able to capture
and the access that you got from the different characters,
(12:01):
it allowed you to show the entirety of each of them.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Well, you know, again the companies were at different stages.
Halfway through the movie, all these companies went public and
then all the lawyers show up and have their own
thoughts on how you should do these things, which was
the pain if I'm totally honest. You know, Will Marshall,
who I adore and have spent all these years writing about,
(12:28):
was much more reserved and has a very interesting social life.
He lives in a communal house in Silicon Valley and
has for many years. They would not let us film,
their Will would not. The rest of the house said
it was okay, and Will wouldn't. And then you know, Peter,
as long as i've known him, has I think it's
like part Peter in part maybe some Kiwi sensibilities. There's
(12:50):
just a bit more reserved. Doesn't want to come off
as like a show off. And so Peter was great
and Rocket Lab was fantastic. During Feeling, they just were
again a bit more. You know, he didn't want to
show us like his home life. He is concerned about
his privacy and things like that. Chris had none of
these concerns. So so I think, you you know, I
(13:10):
think it's pretty revelatory about their characters. You can tell
in the way we structured the film that we had
some of this stuff with Chris that you're it wasn't
just that we weren't getting it from the other people.
It's hard to get that from anyone. I mean, it
was like a once in a lifetime opportunity where this
person was really allowed, really allowed us to see everything
(13:31):
to do with the company and their life and everything
like that. So yet no, I mean, I think you're right,
and we just tried to navigate it the best we could.
I think you get a pretty good feel for Peter,
and I think there's a reason there's sort of like
less footage of planet in the film. And subsequently after
(13:51):
they saw the film, now I'm getting all these notes
they're like, oh, I wish we'd participated a lot more
than we did and and all that. So I was like,
I told you, so.
Speaker 5 (14:02):
That's amazing.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
I've never written a book ashually. I know you've written many,
and I've read them both, love them both. But I
can imagine that all of the detail that goes into
a book would be a lot more interesting and kind
of gives you the ability that kind of platform to
put a lot more detail into it and kind of
explain things and people better. And then I know what
(14:26):
it's like to create videos, and it is sometimes very
hard to create a story arc, a beginning, middle, and
then it looks easy when somebody watches the final product,
but how it is so hard. And I can only
imagine how much vision and detail you actually did walk
away with from these years filming.
Speaker 5 (14:43):
So what when you first.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
Went into this process of making this documentary, what were
the parts that you were absolute on ensuring that had
to be in there? And what were things that you
wish could have been but just just fit in the
final story.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
All right, I haven't really told this to yeah, but
here's the full I mean, when I set out to
do this, I was like, I'm going to do a
book and a documentary at the same time. I write
a lot of articles and have done these other books
that at the end other people sometimes want to buy
your material and turn it into a documentary. And I'd
(15:19):
been making my own television show, Hello World, and I
was like, you know what, whatever, I'm gonna try to
do this. It's gonna be hard, but let's see if
I could make make a film. And I really it
was not a film at the beginning. I wanted to
make a series, and so I wanted to do this
episodic series. And so really for from like twenty seventeen
to two thousand, so I raised some money from three
(15:41):
wonderful people who helped me get on this journey, and
and so I filmed all over the world. I mean
we filmed. There's a lot of footage from much earlier
days with Rocket Lab and in New Zealand. It's not
in the film. I was in Ukraine, I was in
French Guiana, I went to India and Russia, and so
(16:01):
I wanted to tell this episodic series where you could
see maybe rocket Lab would be one episode and it
would be sort of like this history of that. I
wanted to do the kind of collapse of the Russian
space program, the European space program flies out of French Cana,
sort of center it on these sites that are quite
exotic and unusual and tell stories from there. I've bit
(16:22):
off more than I could chew, is what happened, and
sort of ran out of money at various points during
this exercise, and really it was just too big for me.
And so I'd gathered these hundreds of hours of footage
then brought on this wonderful team Ross Kaufman as the
Academy Award winning director of this film. Jake Callahan was
(16:44):
the producer, and so they saved me. They went through
all the footage sort of like centered on the stories
that they liked the best and felt that we had
the strongest footage from and then we filmed for another
couple of years after that to round everything out. So
sorry it's long answer, but it was a very long journey.
Speaker 5 (17:02):
Well, I had absolutely no idea that again.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
I mean, all I'm thinking, Ashley, is there's so much
vision there still to be used, Like you've got number two, three, four,
five in the day, Surely there's a lot.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
I mean. The problem was I didn't know what I
was doing, and I stretched myself too thin, and so
some of these stories went pretty deep. Like we'd Astro
was right in my backyard. It was easy for me
to go there every week twice a week for a
long period of time. Things like Ukraine. We got amazing
footage I went to. I was the first Western journalist
I think probably still the only who ever went into
(17:35):
the old Soviet ICBM factory and dinepro with the camera.
I went to these hid rocket test sites in the
forest with the camera. We just didn't have enough as
the money started running out, it was just I was
getting spread too thin and so so yes, I'm still
kind of like wondering what to do with with that
footage we filmed with this company, spin Launch that's making
a space catapult, which sounds insane, but they want to
(17:58):
They want to throw rocks to the edge of space
and I yeah, So they built this huge centrifuge and
it spends at this incredible speed and then you you
throw the rocket to the edge of space, so they
sort of use the centrifuge to get over the gravity
part that requires so much fuel, and then the rocket
just lights up at the very end. But I film
(18:20):
with them when they were like twelve people in a
secret room in Silicon Valley and all this stuff. So anyway,
I'll have to like figure out something to do with
all this one day. But I just have to have
to get this one done first.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
Can you please at least just make us a promise
that we will see it someday, because that that just
sounds incredible.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
No, I fully intend to. And then, you know, some
of this will just be great because you I did
film with a number of subjects, and you kind of
get to see who's made it and who has it,
and then and then go back and I'll have some
good early days stuff, hopefully on some success stories here.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
But as you know, this industry that we cover moves
so quickly, and you were covering up the years, how
did you know at the point to stop? I mean,
even as you say they went public at some point,
it almost felt like that may have been a natural
point to stop.
Speaker 5 (19:07):
But you kept filming for years after that.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
How did you know when to kind of title together
and how did you ensure that it was still relevant
when it was released because new things had all the time.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
Yeah. No, no would be a strong strong word gids. Yes, yeah,
you know there were these big moments. I mean, you're
trying to find a like rocket Lab was sort of
no problem because they had reached this level of success
(19:40):
where I felt pretty confident. But once we'd been at
it for a while, I felt quite confident that they
were going to be around, they were going to be
doing interesting things. They were okay. Planet was quite similar
that they had built this giant constellation of satellites. We're
making money and we're doing okay. Some of these other
rocket companies, that's you know, I was filming with a
bunch of them, and they you try to find the
(20:00):
best character from the story and then you're kind of
waiting for some points where you could you could put
a flag in the sand. Astra was problematic, you know,
COVID came along. That's a lot a lot of things.
The original idea was to sort of Astra's whole goal
was to build a rocket faster than anybody ever had
and launch it, and you know, if that had gone
(20:21):
swimmingly well, then you would have you would have that
moment and maybe that's that's it, You've done it, and
for that for their story. But that didn't happen. It
took many, many years, and and then even after the
rocket had succeeded, it started to fail. And so you
have to pick these spots in the Astra. Just this morning,
you know, they'd basically gone bankrupt and now took the
(20:44):
company private, and that just happened today. We kind of
had a sense this was coming, and so it's it's
one of the final notes in the movie. But it
was hard anyway. I don't have a good answer, because
you just have to you have to pick a moment.
I mean, the story is not going to end, and
so maybe there will be wilder, wilder space coming. I
don't know. But I felt like we did get to
(21:05):
some spots where you clearly had seen the trajectory of
rocket Lab and Astra and planets, and there was enough
to kind of give people a feel for why they're
important and interesting.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
Certainly, one of the most interesting parts was the fragility
of the Astra, you know, trying to sell the idea
with vistas and to even call them off, I things
went wrong. I mean that was such incredible insight. What
did that show you about the fragility of this industry?
Obviously you would have known about that anyway, have been
covering it. But is it anything that it showed you
that even surprised you?
Speaker 2 (21:37):
Yeah? Absolutely, I mean for people who don't know you,
it's it's like the most as far as like building
a product for a company goes is the most binary
sort of thing the whole world gets to see, like
did you do a good job or a bad job?
Are you going to survive or not? I mean, either
it gets the space that does what it's supposed to do,
or usually it blows up. And so it's this is
(21:58):
not like some movie you're putting out or a product
or a new kind of food, where you have some
months or years to see if it's if people like it.
So yes, I mean you know, it's this very visceral,
brutal business. And so seeing that up close, was it
was dramatic?
Speaker 1 (22:18):
Yeah, I think it's is such a good movie.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
Yeah, And you usually yeah, you just usually don't get
to see this other other side of it. And so yeah, no,
I mean, I mean it's one of the parts. I
like the other part that's crazy is for the entire
history of the space industry as it was, there was
governments doing these things and so to the to the
point that, like you would have a rocket blow up,
it was sort of a blow to your national pride.
(22:44):
But if the government wanted to keep funding the program,
they were going to keep funding the program, even when
we got to the very earliest days of commercial space.
Even still today, SpaceX is massive, but they're a private company,
and they're a private company for a reason, which is
you don't necessarily want the average Joe investor, retail investors
(23:06):
who don't kind of understand the complexities of this industry
maybe judging you on each launch because when a rocket
blows up, it looks really bad. But there is method
to the madness. I mean, SpaceX has proven out that
you can blow a lot of these up and learn
from them and just try to move quick, which is
what Astro was hoping to emulate, is you don't treat
(23:29):
this thing so precious, you don't waste all this time
you build it, you learn from it and sort of
get to the end goal faster. That way. All these companies,
like we mentioned, went public in the middle of this
because they were chasing this free money that was available
during this spack and I just thought it was like
a Faustian bargain, like, yes, you're getting the money, but
now you have all these retail investors city there, and
(23:52):
every time you launch, your stock price is going up
and down forty to fifty percent, and so it was
a different watching that. I don't we get into that
in the film. I just don't know if people who
are not in the space industry will understand what a new,
different era that is.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
I do definitely want to talk to you about the
sort of grips of governments that these companies don't operate them,
because I thought.
Speaker 5 (24:16):
That was really interesting.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
But you mentioned SpaceX there, which is very clearly the
dominant player.
Speaker 5 (24:21):
I think we all know that.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
What do you think from doing the research for years
and getting to know all of these companies and sort
of the people and leaders behind them.
Speaker 5 (24:31):
What do you think it takes to win in the
space race.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
It's really fascinating, you know. It's like, why so SpaceX
and Blue Origin started almost the exact same year, and
Jeff Bezos had way more money than Elon did when
the companies started Jeff Back's Blue Origin. Both companies were
undoubtedly filled with very smart, ambitious people. You know, SpaceX
(24:57):
has launched I think over four hundred rockets, has for
rocket families, has put is the world's leading satellite manufacturer,
has put people in the space. Blue Origin has never
flown a single satellite into orbit, yet it is here
more than twenty years later, hoping to do it for
the first time, So like, why why does that happen?
I mean, that's very dramatic difference. Rocket Lab started at
(25:24):
almost the same time as a lot of American satellit
A rocket companies, had a little bit less money than
a lot of them had no you know, most of
its employees, because of these itar restrictions, had never worked
on an actual rocket, where some of these other companies
had SpaceX veterans working for them, had had veterans from Boeing,
(25:47):
Lockeed Martin who had done this before. And Rocket Lab
beat them all and continues to beat them all. I mean,
it's a fascinating question. The best thing I have come
to is that I was surprised. I think I underestimated
the effect that CEOs, the very top leadership seems to
have on the culture of the company. In my head,
(26:09):
I always pictured that an organization that got to any
sort of size, the CEO is something of like a cheerleader,
like I don't know, out telling the company story doing
these things, but there's clearly there's to me now, there's
clearly something there where their character appears to sort of
(26:30):
like ripple down through the company. That's the only other
way I can explain it. Honestly, rocket Lab is like
an inexplicable story. If you if you were to place
all ten of these companies that started at a similar
time and imagine that rocket Lab was the one that
rose out, nobody really would have taken that bed, I
think except for Peter Beckett and his friends.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
Well, without giving too much away, that's kind of the
point that you conclude the film on that it's Alon Muskin,
Peter Bacon. You say it with a most surprised at
the end, which it's almost like that's not the conclusion
that you expected to find out when you begin the
whole proceeds.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
I don't think anyone would, and I think I'm you know,
I mean, I've covered this more than most people have,
and I think definitely the you know, the average person
does not realize this at all. They usually kind of
like just think it's Elon and then they always think
it's like they're like, oh, but Jeff Bezos has a
rocket company. They're like, it hasn't flown, you know, rocket,
(27:28):
They've done some tourists stuff. But but yeah, to me,
that is it. That's it. It's a brutal business. It's
very hard, there's almost no room for failure. And so
both those companies now have a huge lead over everybody else.
I think Blue Origin will finally be a competitor because
they have so much money and now apparently, you know,
(27:51):
getting close on this big rocket and so so maybe
we'll have three and there are some new rocket startups
that are coming, so we'll see how this all shakes out.
But but you know, it's a it's a dunting lead.
We probably do not need a world with like eight
rocket companies. We probably need a world with two and
maybe three.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
On governments and organizations, I think NASA was painted in
quite an interesting light. I can't remember who said it
in the film, but someone says that it's almost like
just a bureaucratic organization that's looking at some of an
ice cream.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
Company, the self licking ice cream. That's how it stays alive.
Speaker 5 (28:28):
Yeah, that was so great. That was such an incredible comment.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
But then it's you also kind of contrast that with
the only real success which actually breed a lot of
these ideas and these dreams and these entrepreneurs was this
kind of free wheeling Silicon Valley startup within NASA.
Speaker 5 (28:45):
So can you talk me through your approach.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
And perhaps even how careful you kind of had to
be in or not in the way that you painted NASA.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
Yeah, I mean I I tried to tell the truth,
and I mean I was careful, but I wasn't trying
to massage the situation. R I think I think NASA. Look,
it's a fantastic organization with this incredible track record in
many many, many, many many many ways. It seemed better days,
and it's still doing things. I just think it has
(29:18):
no business doing, like building rockets. I think it should
be focusing more on much missions that are deep into
the solar system science that other people are not going
to fund, really use their expertise for that, you know.
To your point, Well, the guy who made the quote
about the self looking ice cream code. Was this Brigadier
(29:40):
General Pete Warden who ended up in charge of this
Silicon Valley NASA Center, NASA AMES. And you know, he's
a one of a kind. He's an iconoclassed. He's working
in a bureaucratic organization but hates to be doing that
and is trying to reshape it. And so he brought
all these young people in and so, yes, those young
people ended up creating some of these satellite I rocket companies.
(30:01):
I and NASA helped in that. You know, they had resources.
But you know, this did not happen at other NASA centers.
This this sort of happened because Pete Warden set it
up for success. And so you know, I don't sit
Pete's left NASA AMES and it's kind of gone back
to its regular scheduled program. And yeah, I think it's
(30:22):
a big question for the United States. It's a strange organization.
It's a great organization. It's it's funding is so tied
up with the government and the whims of senators who
have jobs in their states that the you know, there
is no sort of pure motivation to pursue space and
do it cost effectively.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
And what your docker really shows is that it necessary anymore, right,
because you know there are these private operaters that are
doing it and don't don't need bureaucrats, and they actually
now have the government in a way in their hands
because all of those three companies, Planet Labs, Astra and
Role Lab all has military contracts. In the doco, you
(31:04):
call it this grand ragime change. I wonder how and
it kind of leaves you feeling quite uncomfortable, and I
wonder if that was the aim of kind of how
you wanted the viewer to feel, because I think even
us having to do Algerils, we have to really be optimists.
But it even makes you know, unseats the most optimistic
(31:27):
among us.
Speaker 5 (31:28):
Really.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
Yeah, I mean I still am pretty optimistic about all
this stuff and mostly come at it from that light.
There's things where I have no problem with companies doing this.
I mean, if you look at the cost of a
SpaceX rocket or a Rocket Lab rocket versus what NASA
or the military contractors produced, to me, that is just
a no brainer. I mean, you know they're full of
(31:53):
It's just I think it's borderline criminal the way they
go about the spending on on these things, and I
think the companies have shown just how just how bad
they are, So that part is fine. You know, this
this next question of like space is this shared good.
Should companies even be like divvying up this real estate
(32:14):
up there putting their satellites in. I think it's obviously inevitable.
I think they're providing valuable services. I think the governments
moved very slowly on all this and aren't always the
best decision makers and so but you know, I mean
the point of the movie is less to kind of
like judge a lot of this stuff and more to
(32:36):
like make people very aware that space has become a business.
I think we still have this misconception of like the
space race days, that this is fully a nationalized pursuit
about science and prestige and you know the good of
humankind for exploring the universe and everything. I mean there's
a bit of that, but like it's a business. And
(32:57):
that was the point, is that all these moves you've
seen for all these decades are nice and all, but
it's different now. And so you know what I was
shocked by is that people don't talk about this very
much because really these decisions are being made by the companies,
and so far, I actually think it's working out okay,
But you know, people make mistakes, there's bad actors that
(33:18):
come along, and I don't think the public is really
aware of what's happening at all or asking any of this.
And if you look at the historical analogs, things like
social networking, a lot of that stuff got so far
before anybody even began wondering if it was a good idea.
It seemed like this was a topic worth covering.
Speaker 5 (33:40):
You don't think we're too far gone?
Speaker 2 (33:42):
Not really, I mean definitely, you know, I think this
shift has happened, but I think it was inevitable, and
I think the governments were doing the government space programs
had become so lazy and slow and sad and bureaucratic
that I think fresh blood was good here. I think
we're I think the ship has sailed. Whether this is
(34:03):
going to be like a commercial enterprise, yes, Do I
think it's going to be like filled with horrible things
as a result. Not really. My biggest concern, honestly is Russia.
I think people don't pay enough attention to this. Russia,
their space program is so tied up in their national identity.
It's a very proud nation. Their space program is collapsing.
(34:27):
SpaceX has undercut them for all the commercial missions. The
war in Ukraine has cut off a ton of customers.
Their program is rife with corruption, and so I see
them as like a wildcard who they have no commercial
space startups at all, so they're not really going to
participate in this new era. And so you know what
happens to something like that, we've already seen. They shot
(34:50):
one of their own satellites down with a missile from
the ground, just to let everyone know they can do that.
So you know that doesn't it's something like that really
that worries me. Is just like an irrational actor.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
I think that right there is the next Ashley Vanson,
Ross Kaufman, HBO original on space, and you can call
it wild and wildest space, and then the next one
wildest wildest space look for I like that.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
All right? I need you're my agent. I did.
Speaker 5 (35:25):
It happens.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
It was so good to chat to you, and you know,
it's it is rare to kind of find a space
note who goes quite deep on the stuff.
Speaker 5 (35:33):
So I loved it. And yeah, again, thank you so
much for sharing all of your work with us. We're
we're very lucky to see it.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
It's my pleasure. Thank you for letting me visit your
country so much. And uh and thanks for the time.
Speaker 1 (35:44):
Next time you're back, I'll show you around, just so
that you really don't think there isn't much here.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
That it's not true. Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 5 (35:53):
Good to meet youtally Kip
Speaker 4 (36:00):
Back bore Dog sl
The information provided in this program is of a general
nature and is not intended to be personalized financial advice.
We encourage you to seek appropriate advice from a qualified
professional to suit your individual circumstances. And your documentary takes
you inside the minds of misfits who unleashed a commercial
assault on Low Earth orbit. Ashley Vance explains why he
spent years documenting the space race.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
All right, I haven't really told this story yet, but.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
Five four three two one you've.
Speaker 4 (00:50):
Heard about the billionaire space Race. Shit, this isn't that movie.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
This HBO original documentary Wild Wild Space follows these slightly
cowboy personalities behind the punishing and once private pursuit to
defy the laws of physics. It focuses on a few characters,
Astra's Chris Kemp, Planet Labs Will Marshall, and Rocket Labs
Peter Beck.
Speaker 5 (01:17):
There's f bombs.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Let's start a company.
Speaker 5 (01:20):
Best competition.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
I'm going to conclusive billions of dollars at stake, and
more importantly, the shape of our society.
Speaker 4 (01:29):
And whoever controls space may very well control the future
of humanity.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
It's impressive innovation, but enough to unseat even the most
optimistic among us. HBO gave me express written consent to
use this trailer. The whole documentary was inspired by Ashley Varance,
who spent years following Rocket Lab and Astra behind the scenes.
I have a chat to him just after the premiere.
(01:55):
This is a bit different to my typical CEO interviews.
It's just two business jo list on other ends of
the Earth, bonding of their coverage of space companies.
Speaker 5 (02:05):
It's good to chat.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
It's my pleasure. Thank you for having me on.
Speaker 5 (02:09):
And thank you again for letting me watch in early screening.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
It was It was so fun to watch early and
I loved it as much as I thought I would.
It was.
Speaker 5 (02:17):
It was really a good job.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Oh thank you. Yeah, well, it was lots of effort.
I'm glad to hear that.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
When I was kind of my first question, right, I mean,
talk about the effort you spent.
Speaker 5 (02:28):
Was it six years writing the book and then filming this.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Yeah, I was trying to think. I mean the first
time I ever. Somebody reminded me last night we had
this premiere in New York City. You know, I make
this television show called Hello World for Bloomberg, and it
was actually the very first season of shooting the show.
I went to see Peter back in Rocket Lab in
Auckland in twenty fifteen, and so I had no idea
(02:51):
I was going to do a book or a documentary
at that point. But we do have so some of
the I mean, we have some archival footage, but otherwise,
like the early footage that you know I kind of
shot with the camera would have been twenty fifteen. And
then you know, it was around twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen
when I really could feel the momentum picking up and
(03:12):
definitely knew there was a book there and started realizing,
you know, I'd done this biography on Elon Musk and
all these people sort of wanted to be the next
Space Act, the next Elon. So I had really good access.
Everybody wanted me to come by, and I realized I
had such good access that I should start trying to
see if I could sneak cameras in there, because it
(03:32):
was it's like really rare to catch some of these
companies at such an early stage and to be invited,
you know, into the Michigan control and to watch the
launches and all that stuff. And so yeah, so anyway,
it's at least six or seven years incredible.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
Well I was going to ask that anyway, I mean,
why not do this on Elon Musk. Why focus on
the smaller satellite low Earth orbit players when there are
you know, massive multibility it's playing in this game like
Elon and formally Bezos two.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Yeah, for a whole bunch of reasons. Everyone. I done
the biography on Elon and.
Speaker 5 (04:04):
We didn't go down so well.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Yeah, we hadn't always had this relationship, so it wasn't
really it wasn't really I had some PTSD and I
really want to spend more time on him. And then
also there's been kind of a few SpaceX. There's quite
a few SpaceX films on Netflix and elsewhere, and and
then you know, it really was It's just what I
(04:28):
got interested in. I mean, I just could feel all
this activity that same story. Like, you know, I'd covered
space quite a bit for a while, and I always
had rocket people reaching out to me, We've built a rocket,
and then you go see it and it's nothing. And
then I started hearing rumors about this guy in New
Zealand and no offense. I was just skeptical. I mean,
it's it's usually something that comes out of like the
(04:51):
United States or Russia, someone with a history of doing
the stuff. And so the first time I went there,
I had very low expectations, and I was shocked. You know,
there was three rocket bodies on the on the shop floor,
and he clearly knew what he was doing, and everyone
was speaking so highly of them, and so I just
kind of caught the cut the bug, and I thought
it was a really fascinating story. I thought everybody hears
(05:13):
about the billionaires all the time. There was just this
raw sort of underbelly, underdog energy to the people that
I was I was covering, and so I enjoyed all
of that. And then you know, in fairness, like I mean,
this is hindsight speaking, but like I worked out pretty
well as far as like Peter at Rocket Lab is concidered.
(05:33):
I mean, people always talk about Branson and Besis. I
mean Elon, Yes, like SpaceX is dominant, but but Peter's
like the only other game in town. So if you're
if you're doing like a space story of Branson or Bezos,
I think you're probably in bad shape.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Nohing's taken that you were under You had kind of
had underwhelming thoughts on our country initially, I think most people.
Do you even see in the documentary about New Zealand
there's like nothing there and it out by.
Speaker 5 (06:04):
The time.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
That was specifically about the cargo.
Speaker 5 (06:09):
Oh yeah, it's nothing.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Yeah, I if that came off of the entire country,
I feel bad. I was trying to I was trying
to kind of like put Peter's place in the country.
When was the first time I came to New Zealand.
You know, my mom's Australian and I've gone to Australia
every year of my life for many, many, many years.
We had a huge family there, but I never went
(06:31):
to New Zealand all those times. I would always be
in Sydney just seeing family. And so I really went
to New Zealand for the first time for this project. Yeah,
twenty fifteen would have been my first visit. And then
over the course of doing the book in the film,
I think I went it's got to be like seven times.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
I think, Wow, over the course of the filming and
doing the research for the book. That's a long way
to come that many times, youde I did.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
I mean one of my favorite trips, you know, A
lot of times I would go see Rocket Lab at
their headquarters and things like that, and then I'm a
tech journalist, I would go see I think I've written
like quite a lot of stories about New Zealand tech
companies for somebody who's not from the country. But one
when I really was like getting ready to do the book,
I we spent this amazing month with my family. I
(07:20):
tried to like retrace Peter's you know, childhood more or
lesson so I wanted to see everywhere he'd grown up,
where he'd gone to school. So we went to the
South Island and started at christ Church and just did
this big road trip already around the country and then
went in a little bit to Queenstown and then back
out and all the way around. And so I went
to dun Eden and in Viicargo, all these spots that
(07:42):
have been part of Peter's life, and then and then
obviously Auckland as well, and so yeah, I was really
memorable trip. I mean that was my family was ready
to move there, and we probably we would have been
a good choice to do that, I think so. But
it was one of my favorite things of doing this
project was getting to know the country. I love it.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
I love that well, you are welcome back anytime, and
on behalf of all of us, thank you for covering
our tech companies.
Speaker 5 (08:08):
We kind of push above our weight on that front.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
So yeah, really do. And then you know, just what
I've seen in the last few years is crazy. I mean,
I guess you know, in large part thanks to Rocket
Labs success, I'm quite convinced after the United States, New
Zealand has more aerospace startups than any other country, which is, like,
it is pretty remarkable feat you heard it.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
Here first, but that is I mean, I think what
is so incredible about this whole documentary. I mean and
your book obviously as well, but the excess that you
got and these companies, I mean, we're both filmed inside them.
There's a lot of commercial sensitivity on those factory floors, right,
like we feel ending there's more you're told that you're
(08:52):
not allowed to film than you are filmed than you
are allowed to film.
Speaker 5 (08:56):
So how did you while you were filming this entire documentary?
Speaker 1 (08:59):
How did you navigate that to ensure you got enough
behind the scenes footage?
Speaker 2 (09:03):
It was really tricky. And if I go on too large,
just tell me to shut up. But I mean you're
totally right. I mean, I mean some of this is
like this very serious legal stuff. There's this you know,
United States law it TAR, which is a restriction around
defense related technologies, and they take it very seriously. Even
if you accidentally leak some image, it's deemed important by
(09:26):
the government. I mean, like the person who took the
images going to jails and you're, you know, possibly are
getting some horrible fine, and so is the company. And
so Rocket Lab fell under those same restrictions. I was
lucky companies like rocket you know, some of the companies
in the film are just at different stages of their journey,
and so Rocket Lab was a little bit trickier. You
(09:48):
have to be quite careful about where you put the camera. Astra,
as people will see in the film, was both like
at a younger stage and also a bit more freewheeling
about some of these things than the other companies, and
so they let me film everything. I mean, I was
in the Michigan control when the rocket's blown up and
they're trying to tell everyone that it was okay, talking
(10:09):
to their investors and things like that, and so but
that's really what I knew I had something special. Is
because this is every other space story you usually see
unless it's a movie where they can dramatize things. It's
a very positive story about everything going right and our
(10:32):
best and brightest doing these amazing, courageous things, which is true.
But you know, there's a lot of heartache and drama
and things going wrong on the way to that point,
which you never get to see because obviously nobody wants
to show their worst moment, and so that was kind
of my quest, was to show what life was really
like at the end. We did have to have a
(10:52):
lawyer look over It's like almost like nothing to do
with the story. It's just did you show this rocket
from this angle where some overseas adversary could blow it
up and figure out how they build their motor And
so you just have a lawyer go over that stuff.
And I made I did make that agreement with the companies.
Obviously nothing to do with content or anything like that.
(11:13):
But let's all not go to jail because of this picture.
So that's how we solved it.
Speaker 5 (11:18):
That would kind of be a bad end, right.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
I think One of my favorite moments, and a couple
of them, were following Chris Kemp around and just how
forthcoming he was to you, even kilt playing up for
the cameras right, like eating the lead paint. And one
of my favorite, which was kind of a very quick
moment with him on the phone too, I'm assuming his
partner and he said something like, baby, this is going
(11:40):
to make our lives so much easier. It was like
course personal moments, and I found that was quite a
contrast to the light that you saw either Will Marshall
or Peter Beckett. You know, they were very much at
work and wanted to be scientists and engineers. Do you
feel like through the content you were able to capture
and the access that you got from the different characters,
(12:01):
it allowed you to show the entirety of each of them.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Well, you know, again the companies were at different stages.
Halfway through the movie, all these companies went public and
then all the lawyers show up and have their own
thoughts on how you should do these things, which was
the pain if I'm totally honest. You know, Will Marshall,
who I adore and have spent all these years writing about,
(12:28):
was much more reserved and has a very interesting social life.
He lives in a communal house in Silicon Valley and
has for many years. They would not let us film,
their Will would not. The rest of the house said
it was okay, and Will wouldn't. And then you know, Peter,
as long as i've known him, has I think it's
like part Peter in part maybe some Kiwi sensibilities. There's
(12:50):
just a bit more reserved. Doesn't want to come off
as like a show off. And so Peter was great
and Rocket Lab was fantastic. During Feeling, they just were
again a bit more. You know, he didn't want to
show us like his home life. He is concerned about
his privacy and things like that. Chris had none of
these concerns. So so I think, you you know, I
(13:10):
think it's pretty revelatory about their characters. You can tell
in the way we structured the film that we had
some of this stuff with Chris that you're it wasn't
just that we weren't getting it from the other people.
It's hard to get that from anyone. I mean, it
was like a once in a lifetime opportunity where this
person was really allowed, really allowed us to see everything
(13:31):
to do with the company and their life and everything
like that. So yet no, I mean, I think you're right,
and we just tried to navigate it the best we could.
I think you get a pretty good feel for Peter,
and I think there's a reason there's sort of like
less footage of planet in the film. And subsequently after
(13:51):
they saw the film, now I'm getting all these notes
they're like, oh, I wish we'd participated a lot more
than we did and and all that. So I was like,
I told you, so.
Speaker 5 (14:02):
That's amazing.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
I've never written a book ashually. I know you've written many,
and I've read them both, love them both. But I
can imagine that all of the detail that goes into
a book would be a lot more interesting and kind
of gives you the ability that kind of platform to
put a lot more detail into it and kind of
explain things and people better. And then I know what
(14:26):
it's like to create videos, and it is sometimes very
hard to create a story arc, a beginning, middle, and
then it looks easy when somebody watches the final product,
but how it is so hard. And I can only
imagine how much vision and detail you actually did walk
away with from these years filming.
Speaker 5 (14:43):
So what when you first.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
Went into this process of making this documentary, what were
the parts that you were absolute on ensuring that had
to be in there? And what were things that you
wish could have been but just just fit in the
final story.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
All right, I haven't really told this to yeah, but
here's the full I mean, when I set out to
do this, I was like, I'm going to do a
book and a documentary at the same time. I write
a lot of articles and have done these other books
that at the end other people sometimes want to buy
your material and turn it into a documentary. And I'd
(15:19):
been making my own television show, Hello World, and I
was like, you know what, whatever, I'm gonna try to
do this. It's gonna be hard, but let's see if
I could make make a film. And I really it
was not a film at the beginning. I wanted to
make a series, and so I wanted to do this
episodic series. And so really for from like twenty seventeen
to two thousand, so I raised some money from three
(15:41):
wonderful people who helped me get on this journey, and
and so I filmed all over the world. I mean
we filmed. There's a lot of footage from much earlier
days with Rocket Lab and in New Zealand. It's not
in the film. I was in Ukraine, I was in
French Guiana, I went to India and Russia, and so
(16:01):
I wanted to tell this episodic series where you could
see maybe rocket Lab would be one episode and it
would be sort of like this history of that. I
wanted to do the kind of collapse of the Russian
space program, the European space program flies out of French Cana,
sort of center it on these sites that are quite
exotic and unusual and tell stories from there. I've bit
(16:22):
off more than I could chew, is what happened, and
sort of ran out of money at various points during
this exercise, and really it was just too big for me.
And so I'd gathered these hundreds of hours of footage
then brought on this wonderful team Ross Kaufman as the
Academy Award winning director of this film. Jake Callahan was
(16:44):
the producer, and so they saved me. They went through
all the footage sort of like centered on the stories
that they liked the best and felt that we had
the strongest footage from and then we filmed for another
couple of years after that to round everything out. So
sorry it's long answer, but it was a very long journey.
Speaker 5 (17:02):
Well, I had absolutely no idea that again.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
I mean, all I'm thinking, Ashley, is there's so much
vision there still to be used, Like you've got number two, three, four,
five in the day, Surely there's a lot.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
I mean. The problem was I didn't know what I
was doing, and I stretched myself too thin, and so
some of these stories went pretty deep. Like we'd Astro
was right in my backyard. It was easy for me
to go there every week twice a week for a
long period of time. Things like Ukraine. We got amazing
footage I went to. I was the first Western journalist
I think probably still the only who ever went into
(17:35):
the old Soviet ICBM factory and dinepro with the camera.
I went to these hid rocket test sites in the
forest with the camera. We just didn't have enough as
the money started running out, it was just I was
getting spread too thin and so so yes, I'm still
kind of like wondering what to do with with that
footage we filmed with this company, spin Launch that's making
a space catapult, which sounds insane, but they want to
(17:58):
They want to throw rocks to the edge of space
and I yeah, So they built this huge centrifuge and
it spends at this incredible speed and then you you
throw the rocket to the edge of space, so they
sort of use the centrifuge to get over the gravity
part that requires so much fuel, and then the rocket
just lights up at the very end. But I film
(18:20):
with them when they were like twelve people in a
secret room in Silicon Valley and all this stuff. So anyway,
I'll have to like figure out something to do with
all this one day. But I just have to have
to get this one done first.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
Can you please at least just make us a promise
that we will see it someday, because that that just
sounds incredible.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
No, I fully intend to. And then, you know, some
of this will just be great because you I did
film with a number of subjects, and you kind of
get to see who's made it and who has it,
and then and then go back and I'll have some
good early days stuff, hopefully on some success stories here.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
But as you know, this industry that we cover moves
so quickly, and you were covering up the years, how
did you know at the point to stop? I mean,
even as you say they went public at some point,
it almost felt like that may have been a natural
point to stop.
Speaker 5 (19:07):
But you kept filming for years after that.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
How did you know when to kind of title together
and how did you ensure that it was still relevant
when it was released because new things had all the time.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
Yeah. No, no would be a strong strong word gids. Yes, yeah,
you know there were these big moments. I mean, you're
trying to find a like rocket Lab was sort of
no problem because they had reached this level of success
(19:40):
where I felt pretty confident. But once we'd been at
it for a while, I felt quite confident that they
were going to be around, they were going to be
doing interesting things. They were okay. Planet was quite similar
that they had built this giant constellation of satellites. We're
making money and we're doing okay. Some of these other
rocket companies, that's you know, I was filming with a
bunch of them, and they you try to find the
(20:00):
best character from the story and then you're kind of
waiting for some points where you could you could put
a flag in the sand. Astra was problematic, you know,
COVID came along. That's a lot a lot of things.
The original idea was to sort of Astra's whole goal
was to build a rocket faster than anybody ever had
and launch it, and you know, if that had gone
(20:21):
swimmingly well, then you would have you would have that
moment and maybe that's that's it, You've done it, and
for that for their story. But that didn't happen. It
took many, many years, and and then even after the
rocket had succeeded, it started to fail. And so you
have to pick these spots in the Astra. Just this morning,
you know, they'd basically gone bankrupt and now took the
(20:44):
company private, and that just happened today. We kind of
had a sense this was coming, and so it's it's
one of the final notes in the movie. But it
was hard anyway. I don't have a good answer, because
you just have to you have to pick a moment.
I mean, the story is not going to end, and
so maybe there will be wilder, wilder space coming. I
don't know. But I felt like we did get to
(21:05):
some spots where you clearly had seen the trajectory of
rocket Lab and Astra and planets, and there was enough
to kind of give people a feel for why they're
important and interesting.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
Certainly, one of the most interesting parts was the fragility
of the Astra, you know, trying to sell the idea
with vistas and to even call them off, I things
went wrong. I mean that was such incredible insight. What
did that show you about the fragility of this industry?
Obviously you would have known about that anyway, have been
covering it. But is it anything that it showed you
that even surprised you?
Speaker 2 (21:37):
Yeah? Absolutely, I mean for people who don't know you,
it's it's like the most as far as like building
a product for a company goes is the most binary
sort of thing the whole world gets to see, like
did you do a good job or a bad job?
Are you going to survive or not? I mean, either
it gets the space that does what it's supposed to do,
or usually it blows up. And so it's this is
(21:58):
not like some movie you're putting out or a product
or a new kind of food, where you have some
months or years to see if it's if people like it.
So yes, I mean you know, it's this very visceral,
brutal business. And so seeing that up close, was it
was dramatic?
Speaker 1 (22:18):
Yeah, I think it's is such a good movie.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
Yeah, And you usually yeah, you just usually don't get
to see this other other side of it. And so yeah, no,
I mean, I mean it's one of the parts. I
like the other part that's crazy is for the entire
history of the space industry as it was, there was
governments doing these things and so to the to the
point that, like you would have a rocket blow up,
it was sort of a blow to your national pride.
(22:44):
But if the government wanted to keep funding the program,
they were going to keep funding the program, even when
we got to the very earliest days of commercial space.
Even still today, SpaceX is massive, but they're a private company,
and they're a private company for a reason, which is
you don't necessarily want the average Joe investor, retail investors
(23:06):
who don't kind of understand the complexities of this industry
maybe judging you on each launch because when a rocket
blows up, it looks really bad. But there is method
to the madness. I mean, SpaceX has proven out that
you can blow a lot of these up and learn
from them and just try to move quick, which is
what Astro was hoping to emulate, is you don't treat
(23:29):
this thing so precious, you don't waste all this time
you build it, you learn from it and sort of
get to the end goal faster. That way. All these companies,
like we mentioned, went public in the middle of this
because they were chasing this free money that was available
during this spack and I just thought it was like
a Faustian bargain, like, yes, you're getting the money, but
now you have all these retail investors city there, and
(23:52):
every time you launch, your stock price is going up
and down forty to fifty percent, and so it was
a different watching that. I don't we get into that
in the film. I just don't know if people who
are not in the space industry will understand what a new,
different era that is.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
I do definitely want to talk to you about the
sort of grips of governments that these companies don't operate them,
because I thought.
Speaker 5 (24:16):
That was really interesting.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
But you mentioned SpaceX there, which is very clearly the
dominant player.
Speaker 5 (24:21):
I think we all know that.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
What do you think from doing the research for years
and getting to know all of these companies and sort
of the people and leaders behind them.
Speaker 5 (24:31):
What do you think it takes to win in the
space race.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
It's really fascinating, you know. It's like, why so SpaceX
and Blue Origin started almost the exact same year, and
Jeff Bezos had way more money than Elon did when
the companies started Jeff Back's Blue Origin. Both companies were
undoubtedly filled with very smart, ambitious people. You know, SpaceX
(24:57):
has launched I think over four hundred rockets, has for
rocket families, has put is the world's leading satellite manufacturer,
has put people in the space. Blue Origin has never
flown a single satellite into orbit, yet it is here
more than twenty years later, hoping to do it for
the first time, So like, why why does that happen?
I mean, that's very dramatic difference. Rocket Lab started at
(25:24):
almost the same time as a lot of American satellit
A rocket companies, had a little bit less money than
a lot of them had no you know, most of
its employees, because of these itar restrictions, had never worked
on an actual rocket, where some of these other companies
had SpaceX veterans working for them, had had veterans from Boeing,
(25:47):
Lockeed Martin who had done this before. And Rocket Lab
beat them all and continues to beat them all. I mean,
it's a fascinating question. The best thing I have come
to is that I was surprised. I think I underestimated
the effect that CEOs, the very top leadership seems to
have on the culture of the company. In my head,
(26:09):
I always pictured that an organization that got to any
sort of size, the CEO is something of like a cheerleader,
like I don't know, out telling the company story doing
these things, but there's clearly there's to me now, there's
clearly something there where their character appears to sort of
(26:30):
like ripple down through the company. That's the only other
way I can explain it. Honestly, rocket Lab is like
an inexplicable story. If you if you were to place
all ten of these companies that started at a similar
time and imagine that rocket Lab was the one that
rose out, nobody really would have taken that bed, I
think except for Peter Beckett and his friends.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
Well, without giving too much away, that's kind of the
point that you conclude the film on that it's Alon Muskin,
Peter Bacon. You say it with a most surprised at
the end, which it's almost like that's not the conclusion
that you expected to find out when you begin the
whole proceeds.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
I don't think anyone would, and I think I'm you know,
I mean, I've covered this more than most people have,
and I think definitely the you know, the average person
does not realize this at all. They usually kind of
like just think it's Elon and then they always think
it's like they're like, oh, but Jeff Bezos has a
rocket company. They're like, it hasn't flown, you know, rocket,
(27:28):
They've done some tourists stuff. But but yeah, to me,
that is it. That's it. It's a brutal business. It's
very hard, there's almost no room for failure. And so
both those companies now have a huge lead over everybody else.
I think Blue Origin will finally be a competitor because
they have so much money and now apparently, you know,
(27:51):
getting close on this big rocket and so so maybe
we'll have three and there are some new rocket startups
that are coming, so we'll see how this all shakes out.
But but you know, it's a it's a dunting lead.
We probably do not need a world with like eight
rocket companies. We probably need a world with two and
maybe three.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
On governments and organizations, I think NASA was painted in
quite an interesting light. I can't remember who said it
in the film, but someone says that it's almost like
just a bureaucratic organization that's looking at some of an
ice cream.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
Company, the self licking ice cream. That's how it stays alive.
Speaker 5 (28:28):
Yeah, that was so great. That was such an incredible comment.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
But then it's you also kind of contrast that with
the only real success which actually breed a lot of
these ideas and these dreams and these entrepreneurs was this
kind of free wheeling Silicon Valley startup within NASA.
Speaker 5 (28:45):
So can you talk me through your approach.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
And perhaps even how careful you kind of had to
be in or not in the way that you painted NASA.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
Yeah, I mean I I tried to tell the truth,
and I mean I was careful, but I wasn't trying
to massage the situation. R I think I think NASA. Look,
it's a fantastic organization with this incredible track record in
many many, many, many many many ways. It seemed better days,
and it's still doing things. I just think it has
(29:18):
no business doing, like building rockets. I think it should
be focusing more on much missions that are deep into
the solar system science that other people are not going
to fund, really use their expertise for that, you know.
To your point, Well, the guy who made the quote
about the self looking ice cream code. Was this Brigadier
(29:40):
General Pete Warden who ended up in charge of this
Silicon Valley NASA Center, NASA AMES. And you know, he's
a one of a kind. He's an iconoclassed. He's working
in a bureaucratic organization but hates to be doing that
and is trying to reshape it. And so he brought
all these young people in and so, yes, those young
people ended up creating some of these satellite I rocket companies.
(30:01):
I and NASA helped in that. You know, they had resources.
But you know, this did not happen at other NASA centers.
This this sort of happened because Pete Warden set it
up for success. And so you know, I don't sit
Pete's left NASA AMES and it's kind of gone back
to its regular scheduled program. And yeah, I think it's
(30:22):
a big question for the United States. It's a strange organization.
It's a great organization. It's it's funding is so tied
up with the government and the whims of senators who
have jobs in their states that the you know, there
is no sort of pure motivation to pursue space and
do it cost effectively.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
And what your docker really shows is that it necessary anymore, right,
because you know there are these private operaters that are
doing it and don't don't need bureaucrats, and they actually
now have the government in a way in their hands
because all of those three companies, Planet Labs, Astra and
Role Lab all has military contracts. In the doco, you
(31:04):
call it this grand ragime change. I wonder how and
it kind of leaves you feeling quite uncomfortable, and I
wonder if that was the aim of kind of how
you wanted the viewer to feel, because I think even
us having to do Algerils, we have to really be optimists.
But it even makes you know, unseats the most optimistic
(31:27):
among us.
Speaker 5 (31:28):
Really.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
Yeah, I mean I still am pretty optimistic about all
this stuff and mostly come at it from that light.
There's things where I have no problem with companies doing this.
I mean, if you look at the cost of a
SpaceX rocket or a Rocket Lab rocket versus what NASA
or the military contractors produced, to me, that is just
a no brainer. I mean, you know they're full of
(31:53):
It's just I think it's borderline criminal the way they
go about the spending on on these things, and I
think the companies have shown just how just how bad
they are, So that part is fine. You know, this
this next question of like space is this shared good.
Should companies even be like divvying up this real estate
(32:14):
up there putting their satellites in. I think it's obviously inevitable.
I think they're providing valuable services. I think the governments
moved very slowly on all this and aren't always the
best decision makers and so but you know, I mean
the point of the movie is less to kind of
like judge a lot of this stuff and more to
(32:36):
like make people very aware that space has become a business.
I think we still have this misconception of like the
space race days, that this is fully a nationalized pursuit
about science and prestige and you know the good of
humankind for exploring the universe and everything. I mean there's
a bit of that, but like it's a business. And
(32:57):
that was the point, is that all these moves you've
seen for all these decades are nice and all, but
it's different now. And so you know what I was
shocked by is that people don't talk about this very
much because really these decisions are being made by the companies,
and so far, I actually think it's working out okay,
But you know, people make mistakes, there's bad actors that
(33:18):
come along, and I don't think the public is really
aware of what's happening at all or asking any of this.
And if you look at the historical analogs, things like
social networking, a lot of that stuff got so far
before anybody even began wondering if it was a good idea.
It seemed like this was a topic worth covering.
Speaker 5 (33:40):
You don't think we're too far gone?
Speaker 2 (33:42):
Not really, I mean definitely, you know, I think this
shift has happened, but I think it was inevitable, and
I think the governments were doing the government space programs
had become so lazy and slow and sad and bureaucratic
that I think fresh blood was good here. I think
we're I think the ship has sailed. Whether this is
(34:03):
going to be like a commercial enterprise, yes, Do I
think it's going to be like filled with horrible things
as a result. Not really. My biggest concern, honestly is Russia.
I think people don't pay enough attention to this. Russia,
their space program is so tied up in their national identity.
It's a very proud nation. Their space program is collapsing.
(34:27):
SpaceX has undercut them for all the commercial missions. The
war in Ukraine has cut off a ton of customers.
Their program is rife with corruption, and so I see
them as like a wildcard who they have no commercial
space startups at all, so they're not really going to
participate in this new era. And so you know what
happens to something like that, we've already seen. They shot
(34:50):
one of their own satellites down with a missile from
the ground, just to let everyone know they can do that.
So you know that doesn't it's something like that really
that worries me. Is just like an irrational actor.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
I think that right there is the next Ashley Vanson,
Ross Kaufman, HBO original on space, and you can call
it wild and wildest space, and then the next one
wildest wildest space look for I like that.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
All right? I need you're my agent. I did.
Speaker 5 (35:25):
It happens.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
It was so good to chat to you, and you know,
it's it is rare to kind of find a space
note who goes quite deep on the stuff.
Speaker 5 (35:33):
So I loved it. And yeah, again, thank you so
much for sharing all of your work with us. We're
we're very lucky to see it.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
It's my pleasure. Thank you for letting me visit your
country so much. And uh and thanks for the time.
Speaker 1 (35:44):
Next time you're back, I'll show you around, just so
that you really don't think there isn't much here.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
That it's not true. Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 5 (35:53):
Good to meet youtally Kip
Speaker 4 (36:00):
Back bore Dog sl
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